• Transforming Infrastructure – Cultural Perspectives

    The interdisciplinary research initiative “Transforming Infrastructure: Cultural Perspectives” investigates both the cultural dimensions of infrastructure and the infrastructures of culture. Conceiving of infrastructure as the support systems of human sociality, the initiative addresses pressing questions regarding infrastructure’s relevance in times of global, technological, cultural, and climatic transformation.

    Three complementing research axes provide the means to investigate the cultural dimensions of infrastructure: Literary studies and Philosophy impart insight into concomitant imaginaries; Sociology, Anthropology, and Media studies identify associated practices; while History leads analyses related to processes.

    Show more

Rohre und Bagger

ZKF Public Talk: Cultural Infrastructure Studies

For the past two years, the research initiative „Transforming Infrastructures. Cultural Perspectives” has engaged with the field of infrastructure research. The talk will give an overview on what has been achieved so far and discuss the prospects of this research initiative.

ZKF Public Talk on 15 November 2023 from 17:30 to 19:00
Online via Zoom: Please follow the link.

For the past two years, the research initiative „Transforming Infrastructures. Cultural Perspectives” has engaged with the field of infrastructure research. Its proposal to define infrastructures as “support systems of human sociality” considerably broadens the traditional understanding of infrastructure that is restricted to the technical-material and organizational achievements of Western modernity. Considering that all human societies in all times and places have produced and continue to produce support systems of sociality, the initiative is currently reviewing examples and defining potential projects. Its aim is to define an infrastructural approach, a methodology drawing back on the rich tool box of the humanities and social sciences that will allow to define a larger field of research, i.e. “Cultural infrastructure studies.” The talk will give an overview on what has been achieved so far and discuss the prospects of this research initiative.